Splinterlands Share Your Battle Weekly Challenge - Centauri Mage

over 2 years ago

Hi everyone, this will be my first post participating in the Splinterlands SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge. I’ve been playing Splinterlands since its Alpha and Beta days but mostly for pleasure. I am really surprised when it soared in popularity in the past couple of months and I can say I am happy to have played early in the game. I probably spent around $20 in my account. Back in the day, a player gets five chests in the Bronze league for the daily quests so it is quite easy to acquire new cards from the rewards chests. While it got harder to acquire cards just by playing, the cards I accumulated through time are worth way more than my initial investment. I don’t count the time I played as a cost because I as I’ve mentioned above, I play for pleasure. This reminds me of my days playing Magic: The Gathering back in the late 90s.

Sorry but my introduction is getting a bit longer. Going back to the topic, I hope to participate regularly in this weekly challenge if I have the featured monster. For sharing my weekly the Splinterlands SHARE YOUR BATTLE Weekly Challenge, I plan to use the blog structure in this post for consistency.

The Card

Centauri Mage is a rare card of the Earth splinter from the Reward Edition. Its basic ability is the Return Fire which makes a return attack with reduced damage to a Ranged monster opponent that attacks it. Starting at Level 5, it gains the Repair ability which restores a portion of an armor of the friendly monster which takes the most damage during the round.

Pros and Cons

Centauri Mage is a good choice for battles with large mana provisions. With a mana cost of 7, that is a bit too much for low mana battles. Aside from being a to-go creature in the upper leagues where mana allotments in battles become more generous, the Return Fire ability is a good counter for those Ranged monsters. In saying that, this is mostly included in my default line-up when the ruleset encourages the opponent to use Ranged monsters like Aim True and Close Range and/or those rules that prohibits them from use Melee or Magic monsters like Keep Your Distance and Lost Magic ruleset.

General Strategy

Like what I mentioned previously, I use Centauri Mage when there's an abundance of mana allowed. I usually put it in the second slot. Its 9 health is appropriate to receive damage from the Blast ability and also makes it a good second-in-line if the primary monster has died.

The Match

The Lineup

My opponent has used the Water splinter a few times before this match. Anticipating that it will be used again, I front the Unicorn Mustang for reduced damage from magic attacks, then the Centauri Mage. By the way, the mana allotment for this match is 50, so I have enough to summon what I wanted.

I used two other cards for backup tank attacks in the backrow - Sand Worm and War Chaang. However, I put War Chaang at the last spot, even if I have Venari Seedsmith (which I like to have because of its Scavenge ability). I anticipate that if the opponent will also use a Sand Worm and attack War Chaang, there is a chance that my monster will survive for another round, and there is also a chance that it will attack back because of its Retaliate ability. I also have the Wood Nymph to provide some healing.

Surprisingly, the opponent used a Death splinter. But having two Ranged monsters in his team which target Centauri backfired, and even with a different Splinter (than I anticipated), the gameplay that I expect for my team remained almost the same.